


Character Arcs and Plot Progression in Moana

by Nicnac



Category: Moana (2016)
Genre: Essay, Gen, Meta, Script Doctor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-09 19:09:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19482160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nicnac/pseuds/Nicnac
Summary: My thoughts on the major character arcs in and the plot progression of Moana, and some potential script doctors related to that.





	1. Essay

**Author's Note:**

> Crossposted on [Tumblr](https://nicnacsnonsense.tumblr.com/post/186063559182/character-arcs-and-plot-progression-in-moana)

** Introduction **

Moana is a good, solid movie. The animation is gorgeous, the characters are likable, and the songs are catchy and powerful (with one exception on those latter two, but apparently I’m in the minority on that opinion so we’ll just leave it at that). There are arguably a lot of clichés in it, but I don’t mind that, in theory. The ending was also really good and a fun flip on Disney current trend of twist villains. 

All that said, this is a good movie, but it’s not a great one. When I watched it for the first time I left the theater feeling the world of Moana was disappointingly small and the emotional beats were often lacking. I’ve thought about this a lot off and on over the years, and have decided a lot of this is down to problems with three things: the general plot progression, Maui’s character arc, and Moana’s character arc.

In this chapter I’m going to break down what I think the problem is with each of these things, and propose one way you might fix each specific problem. The second chapter will be a script doctor of the entire movie with alternate solutions to all three problems that come together in a cohesive whole.

** Disorganized Plot **

Our story begins with Tala, henceforth referred to as Grandma, telling the story of how Maui stole the heart of Te Fiti in an attempt to give humanity the power of creation, but instead destroyed Te Fiti and caused darkness to descend across all of the Polynesia. Whoops. Within these first few minutes the plot of the upcoming movie is pretty clearly defined. Our protagonist will have to traverse treacherous waters in order to restore the heart of Te Fiti and save us all from encroaching death. A solid straight-forward premise with a lot of potential.

We then spend a while on Motunui, establishing Moana’s character and why she specifically is going to be the one going on this adventure. Our inciting incident occurs when Grandma tells Moana to get Maui to restore the heart of Te Fiti, then passes away. Moana leaves then finds Maui very quickly and faces no real challenge in getting him to join her. That is, while Moana does nominally face obstacles, the only things she does herself is get out of a cave. The ocean solves all her other problems for her – it rescues her from the storm, deposits her on the island where Maui is, (and there’s no challenges to finding him once she’s there) and the ocean thwarts Maui’s attempts to steal Moana’s boat or to leave himself. Because of this lack of difficulty and because Maui is our secondary main character, this feels less like step one on the adventure and more like the last bit of set up before we begin the journey.

Next we have an encounter with the Kakamora, then Moana finally convincing Maui to commit to the returning the heart, a trip to Lalotai to get Maui’s fishhook, what I like to call the nighttime conversation of deep sharing, a montage of Maui learning to use his hook again and Moana learning wayfind, a failed attempt to restore the heart, Moana’s lowest point and then finding her resolve, and finally the successful returning of the heart before we fall into the denouement. If we take out the character beats, we’re left with what amounts to a random encounter, then a fetch quest, then two attempts at the final boss. While the trip to retrieve the fishhook is necessary to complete before restoring the heart, as Maui needs the powers of the hook to hold Te Kā off, it feels more like a side quest, though that may be at least in part due to the whole sequence with Tamatoa feeling like something out of a completely different movie altogether. Meanwhile the encounter with the Kakamora is pointless and achieves nothing really. It could have been useful in making the world feel bigger and in selling how dangerous things are now without Te Fiti and her heart if it was one of a few such encounters, but by itself it just feels out of place.

As one possible alternative, we could have Moana not have the heart when she sets out. Maybe the ocean showed it’s choosing of her a different way, or maybe she wasn’t chosen at all, she just sets out to do it because it needs doing. In this version Moana’s only objective is to find Maui to ask him to restore the heart. She finds Maui after overcoming some genuinely difficult obstacle on her own, and makes the ask. Maui agrees, and Moana’s like great, mission achieved! And Maui’s like yeah, sure, buuut I actually need you to take me to get my hook first. So they go to Lalotai and get the hook from Tamatoa. And Moana’s like great, now you can restore the heart! And Maui’s like totally, buuut we need to find the heart first, I don’t actually have it. So they journey to the area of the ocean where Maui thinks he dropped it and they manage to retrieve it after overcoming some obstacle. One possible idea there is for them to encounter an island covered with a profusion of plants, all way larger than normal, causing to think, yep, that’s probably where Te Fiti’s life-giving heart is; how fortunate it’s just being used by plants and not been found by a monster. Except it turns out in addition to growing large and plentiful, Te Fiti’s heart has also caused the plants to grow sentient, and they don’t want to give the heart up. Moana and Maui successfully retrieve the heart, and at that point we can proceed to the confrontations with Te Kā more or less as per canon.

This plot progression allows our lead up to confronting Te Kā and restoring the heart to now become a series of finding x, then y, then z, then the final confrontation. Each thing Moana finds flows into needing to find the next thing, making the story more cohesive as a whole.

Additionally we can take our three major character beats that all take place between Lalotai and Te Fiti – the nighttime conversation of deep sharing, Maui relearning to use his hook, and Moana learning to wayfind – and spread them out between the plot beats. So we have Moana finds Maui and secures his help. Then on the way to Lalotai Maui teaches Moana about wayfinding. They get the hook back from Tamatoa, then on the way to the heart, Moana helps Maui to figure out how to use it again. Finally, as they are approaching Te Fiti, heart and hook in hand, they have a nighttime conversation of deep sharing. By spreading these out it should help build a feeling of distance between each location, making the journey seem longer and the world bigger.

** Maui’s Vague Arc **

Maui’s arc baffles me, in that I’m not sure what it’s even supposed to be. This I think comes back to what I mentioned earlier about not minding clichés _in theory_. The problem is with Maui it feels as though they decided on the cliché “disillusioned loner becomes a hero through the power of friendship” and then started applying story and character beats that went with that cliché without considering how those tropes would interact together or with the narrative. The result is a bit of a mess.

As mentioned before the movie opens with the story of Maui stealing the heart of Te Fiti. What’s weird about this is everything about the story, both in the way it’s told and in the way it’s visually presented frame Maui as the villain. This works fine on the first watch because even though even someone who lives in a cave still saw the Blu-ray box art and knows Maui is going to be a good guy, it’s plausible he wasn’t one at the time. On a rewatch though it’s weird to see Maui’s fairly menacing expressions during this story. Still, it can be argued this is Grandma telling the story to the best of her understanding, which is not necessarily a complete and accurate one, and the visuals merely reflect that. Okay, but that raises the issue of why Grandma would ever think asking Maui to restore the heart would be a good idea. In the scenario where Maui stole the heart to give to mankind, it makes sense to go to him and say, “Thanks for the thought, but this is working out pretty terribly for us, so we’d like you to return the heart.” But why would you approach someone who attempted to steal something for their personal benefit and give them that object and think they’ll go give it back to its rightful owner? How does that follow? But okay, we’ll go with it. Maybe Grandma is worried since Maui took the heart, he’s the only one who can put it back.

Moving forward, Moana arrives on Maui’s island and confronts him only for him to reveal, plot twist, he’s actually a hero who stole the heart not for himself, but for mankind. Except then we get an immediate plot twist back that Maui is a selfish jerk who leaves Moana to die in a cave, refuses to help her restore the heart, and then leaves her to be killed by the Kakamora. But twist back again, he really does want to be a hero to all and Moana is able to use that desire to get him to agree to restore the heart. But that doesn’t stop him from continually trying to get out of it, as though this is something Moana is forcing him to do rather than something she’s convinced him to do, and being extremely dismissive of and arguably flat-out mean to Moana.

The thing of it is there are a lot of different ways you could explain his behavior. Maybe he really does care about mankind and want to be a hero again, but he’s so afraid of Te Kā/convinced the heart is a genuine curse on him for stealing it that he can’t face this one particular task, and he’s lashing out at Moana for dragging him into it, despite deep down knowing she’s right. Maybe he wants to be a hero again because he wants the adulation of mankind, but he doesn’t actually care about people and feels this task is too much of a risk to be worth it. Maybe he’s only agreed because the ocean is basically refusing to give him a choice and he feels forced into it. Maybe he only agreed as a way of conning Moana into taking him to get his fishhook back, and he only decides he’s actually going to help with the Te Fiti thing after she saves him from Tamatoa. Any of these could work, but the movie pursues none of them, leaving his motivations unexplained and confusing.

Back to the plot, next they go to Lalotai and Maui gets his hook back, finds he can no longer use it effectively, and almost gets killed by Tamatoa, only to be saved by Moana’s quick thinking. There’s also a point in Tamatoa’s song where he references Maui having been abandoned in the past and brings attention to one of Maui’s tattoos. After they escape Lalotai, there’s a brief moment where Maui expresses a new found appreciation for Moana because she saved his life, but that character connection is immediately undercut by the humor of Maui’s hook continuing to malfunction.

Cut to later, and our nighttime conversation of deep sharing. Though it technically appears to be astronomical twilight as opposed to true night, but that’s less important than all the other ways this scene falls flat. The scene begins with Maui being despondent about his hook not working. Eventually he sits up with his back to Moana, prompting her to ask about his tattoo. We find out over the course of the ensuing argument that she believes the story behind the tattoo could explain why he can’t use his hook anymore. If they’re not really thinking about it, this can make sense to the audience. We were just shown this tattoo in a way that emphasizes to the us that this is important right after we were shown Maui’s inability to use his hook. In that context, Moana’s insistent questioning is justified – saving her dying island and presumably every island dying everywhere is more important than Maui’s reticence over talking about his personal issues.

But once you move past the framing and think about the logic of the situation, that assumption makes no sense. Why would this tattoo showing a woman chucking a baby into the ocean have anything to do with Maui’s hook? Why would you think any of his tattoos have anything to do with it? It’s been a thousand years since he’s had his hook; shouldn’t your base assumption be he’s out of practice and he just needs to keep at it until he can get back into the swing of things? In that context Moana’s questioning comes off as harassment. She asked him about something personal, he declined to answer and she kept asking and asking over repeated protests and even smacked him with her oar a couple times. Not hard, but she’s still hitting him. Eventually he grabs the oar away from her, throwing her into the ocean in the process.

When she gets back on the boat Moana reminds Maui of what’s at stake and says she only wants to help. Okay, fine Moana’s made this weird assumption, but given that her behavior is understandable, and it makes sense that her half-apology, half-explanation would placate Maui. What doesn’t make sense is why this would prompt Maui to explain the tattoo. Because while Moana might make a weird assumption, Maui should know the tattoo has nothing to do with his hook. It can’t, despite what the movie tries to imply, because that is something that happened when he was an infant, and he successfully used the hook for many years after it.

Maui tells her his backstory which is basically his parents threw him away, the gods gave him his fishhook and made him the demigod Maui, and then he went back to humans and started doing stuff for them, but it was never enough. What “it” was and who it wasn’t enough for is left undefined; best guess is that the adulation of humanity was never enough to give him a sense of real self-worth. Moana tells him essentially maybe the gods and the ocean chose him because they thought he was worth something and also self-worth comes from within not from gods or magic fishhooks. This comes off more as clichéd advice born of general sympathy than true friendship and deep empathy, which is not particularly emotionally satisfying, even if it does make sense as Moana doesn’t really know Maui that well and they aren’t friends at this point, or arguably ever.

Regardless, this encouragement is enough to give Maui renewed hope and he tries the hook again and everything goes perfectly. So he’s told he doesn’t need the hook and that’s the key to let him use it again. Apparently he was having performance issues, and he just needed to relax and let it happen naturally… One hopes that wasn’t the metaphor they were deliberately going for, but there it is.

After that we have the back to back learning montages, then the first confrontation with Te Kā, then Maui and Moana’s falling out where Maui leaves. I’ll come back to this scene later, but for now in specific reference to Maui’s character and his character and actions alone, it actually works well. His anger at Moana feels justified, and his psychological reliance on his hook has been established enough it feels believable that the possibility of losing it would cause him to leave.

Then he comes back and offers literally zero explanation as to why he did so. Not even a stupid joking one. He just kind of laughs awkwardly and goes to fight Te Kā. This would be fine if he had seemed conflicted when he left or if we had seen something in between leaving and coming back showing him reconsidering, but failing that there needs to be some indication of why he changed his mind. As it stands, the end of his character arc here falls flat because while his return indicates some sort of growth, we don’t know how he’s grown or what triggered that growth.

I have so many ideas of different ways you could take this character arc, probably because it’s so vague. That being said, since I’ve talked about this a lot already, I’ll stick to one fairly simple one here. You can keep everything the same except for two scenes, the one where he leaves and the one where he comes back.

The scene where he leaves would start the same, with him angry at Moana and blaming the damage to his hook on her and her need to prove she’s special. But in this version, she turns it back around on him. She’s not the one with the need to prove she’s special, she’s just trying to save her island. Maui’s the one who wants everyone to think he’s the hero of man, but a real hero would have tried to restore the heart of Te Fiti the second he realized what a mistake he’d made, not sat around in his cave and sulked for a millennium. He doesn’t care about humans, he just wants them to worship him to make up for his parents never loving him. Moana immediately realizes she went too far, but Maui leaves before she can apologize.

When Maui comes back she tells him she’s sorry, and he accepts it. He agrees that she crossed a line, but at the same time acknowledges she was mostly right about him. If he wants to be a hero, then he needs to start acting like one. Thank you, you’re welcome exchange, because that part is amazing and gives me shivers, then the rest of the movie as per canon.

Just these two adjustments fix so much. The inclusion of Maui’s backstory with his parents now feels necessary because it comes back later. Maui’s accusation that Moana risked their lives to feel special is no longer supported by the narrative – which is odd as it’s never a part of her character elsewhere – but called out as him projecting. His desire to be a hero contradicting with his actions and treatment of Moana is now a feature, not a bug. And finally his character arc is clearly defined as him starting as a fake hero only in it for the accolades to bolster his own sense of worth and growing to become a real hero in it to help people because he was inspired by Moana’s example.

** Moana’s Disjointed Arc **

Moana’s character arc is kind of bizarre. The opening establishes her central character conflict very well: she’s pulled between her responsibilities as the daughter of the village chief and next in line to lead – represented by the song “Where You Are” – and her own personal desire to voyage the ocean – represented by the song “How Far I’ll Go.” Then toward the end during her lowest moment, Grandma’s ghost shows up to comfort Moana, and Moana realizes these two disparate parts of herself can exist in harmony and together they make up who she is – represented by the song “I Am Moana” which is reprise of both “Where You Are” and “How Far I’ll Go.” It’s very moving and bringing those two songs back is very powerful, except…

Except there is nothing related to this character arc between those key points. Ultimately it’s less of a character arc and more of a pair of character pillars with nothing connecting them. The reason we don’t see any of this struggle during the middle part of the movie is it is fundamentally incompatible with plot as they have it. Moana’s character conflict is between her duty to her people and her love of the ocean, and the plot is her saving her people by going on an ocean adventure. There is no conflict there. The conflict was resolved the moment Grandma gave her the heart of Te Fiti and told her to restore it.

This causes a problem toward the end, because when there is no conflict, then the only way to cause her to hit that low moment and give up is by making her feel like she failed, but that’s doesn’t give us the veneer of crisis of self we need to justify the next song and to make it feel as though her arc has been completed. So the movie throws this conflict at us where when Maui leaves he tells Moana the ocean was wrong to choose her, and this apparently breaks her and makes her give up. Except, Moana never seems particularly concerned about the whole “Chosen One” aspect. Maui harps on it much more than she does. She’s here because she wants to save her people. During their nighttime conversation of deep sharing Moana explicitly says, “I don’t know why the ocean chose me. You’re right. But my island is dying, so I am here.”

As a side note to that, the whole idea of Moana being chosen is a little weird, because throughout most of the movie everyone seems convinced Maui is going to be the one to actually restore the heart. This means what Moana was chosen to do was to take Maui to Te Fiti. Maybe it’s just me, but water taxi doesn’t feel like a job that requires a chosen one.

If we want to keep this same character arc, then we’re going to need to make some changes to the plot. We’re going to really embrace the rebellious princess cliché. In this version Moana feels a lot of pressure at the idea of becoming the next chief of the village, compounded by her certainty she won’t be able to live up to her father’s example and also by the unexplained blight that has recently began destroying their crops and killing off the fish. Sailing is her one escape from everything. Moana gets older, the blight gets worse, and the pressure continues to grow. Grandma dies, and that’s the final straw – Moana straight-up runs away. No noble intentions, no heart of Te Fiti – at this point Moana’ doesn’t even know the heart’s been stolen – Moana just can’t take it anymore and leaves.

Soon after leaving she runs into Maui and, being a big fan of his from all the stories of the cool things he’s done, asks if she can voyage with him. He agrees to let her join him on his quest, but remains vague about the exact nature of it at first. They voyage together for a while and overcome a number of obstacles. Said obstacles can be things Maui says need to do to move their as of yet undefined quest forward or they can be random encounters like the Kakamora are in canon. Finally, during their nighttime conversation of deep sharing, Maui tells her the story of how he tried to give humanity the gift of creation by stealing the heart of Te Fiti and how he seriously firetrucked that up big time. He’s spent a long time running away from his mistake, but now he’s going to own up to his responsibilities. He gives Moana an out before their confrontation with Te Kā because of how dangerous it will be, but Moana reaffirms her intention to help.

They face off against Te Kā, and Moana nearly dies. She freaks out because this is way beyond what she wanted. She wanted to explore and have adventures, not face a real and imminent threat of death. She doesn’t want to do this anymore, so Maui leaves to try again on his own. Moana descends into an existential crisis: being a voyager is not what she thought it’d be and her guilt over abandoning Maui brings back the guilt over abandoning her people she’d been suppressing. Stingray Grandma shows up to comfort her, and makes the revelation the blight on Motunui is being caused by Te Fiti’s lost heart. Moana realizes that abandoning her people, though wrong, is what brought her to where she was meant to be to save them. These two sides of herself come together because she can fulfill her duty to her people by being herself and she can face the dangers on her chosen path if it’s to help her people. She heads back to Te Kā and Maui, and this time she’s the one who enters the battle at the pivotal moment to turn the tide. The rest again goes more or less per canon.

This way there is genuine conflict between Moana’s people and her love of the sea until the moment of resolution at the end. Further, Moana’s lowest moment is now caused by an actual existential crisis, not just a lack of confidence in her ability to do the task, so it makes sense it would be resolved with a realization of self. And as a bonus you can still use the song “I Am Moana” without changing it all, because if anything I feel it fits this version of the story even better than canon.

** Conclusion **

I just want to close out with two quick reminders. First of all, despite my complaining I do think this was a good movie, and I would recommend it to anyone who loves the classic Disney animated movies. Secondly I do plan to write another script doctor for this movie this time addressing all three of these issues I found in different ways than I have above and in a ways that work together cohesively. Finally, if you have thoughts on this, if you agree with me, if you disagree, if you have an idea that I didn’t consider here, I would love to hear it and discuss it!


	2. Script Doctor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Technically this is a treatment rather than a full script, but "treatment doctor" sounds like something else entirely.

Our movie still opens with Grandma telling the story of how Maui stole the heart of Te Fiti. The key difference in this version is it is understood and explicitly stated both that Maui stole the heart with the intention of it being for humanity, and that the darkness now spreading across the world because of Te Fiti’s missing heart is also why they settled on their island and stopped being voyagers. The village chief Tui, henceforth referred to as Dad, interrupts her story. Not because he disagrees with any of the facts she is presenting, but because she’s scaring the children. Grandma insists the kids are fine, they love stories about Maui, right Moana? Except whoops, Moana is gone.

Cut to Moana, cowering the bushes at the edge of the beach, having clearly been terrified by the story. She hears some cawing and looks over to see a little baby turtle wanting to get to the ocean, but in danger of being eaten by birds. Moana waffles for a minute, then grabs a leaf and uses it to escort the baby turtle to the ocean, despite clearly being afraid of the birds herself. She successfully gets the turtle back to the ocean and maybe waves goodbye to him. She stares at the ocean apprehensively, then looks down at her feet, where the waves are consistently stopping a few inches short of her. She slowly picks her foot up and is about to test it in the water, when a big waves comes up and knocks her down on her butt. Little Moana is not happy about this. She scrambles backward to get away from the water, and in doing so realizes the big wave also deposited something in her lap. She grabs it and looks at in with interest. Then we hear Dad calling her and she gets up and goes running back to him.

Next is the getting older montage, probably set to song. The big takeaways in this montage include Moana, though smart and athletic and capable, is kind of a scaredy cat and consequently lacks self-confidence in general; Dad is very protective and nurturing and understanding of Moana’s fears to a fault; and Grandma pushes Moana to help her grow, also to a fault. Moana’s afraid of the ocean, so Grandma is liable to pick her up and throw her into the deep water whereas Dad will let her avoid doing anything that has to do with going down to the beach. Also during this we should start to see the effects of the spreading darkness – blight on the crops, less fish in the ocean, and people getting sick.

Finally we get to Moana being the present day time of the movie, and the scene where no fish are caught anywhere on any side of the island. The night after this Moana goes back home to overhear Dad and Grandma arguing. Grandma is asserting Dad knows what needs to be done to fix the crisis and Dad is having none of it: she’s too young; she’s not ready. Grandma accuses him of being overprotective and Dad accuses her of pushing too hard. Grandma says the ocean gave Moana the heart of Te Fiti and chose her to restore the heart. At this point Moana freaks out and runs off. This is also probably where we would insert another song number, though obviously this Moana’s song would be pretty different from “How Far I’ll Go.”

After the song, Moana is sitting by herself when Sina, henceforth Mom, comes up and sits beside her, confirming Moana had heard the argument. She tells Moana Dad and Grandma both love her and want what’s best for her, even if they don’t agree on what that is. Moana pulls the heart out of her pendant and says it can’t actually be the heart, right? It’s just a pounamu stone that happened to wash up on the beach. Mom confirms she believes the stone is the heart of Te Fiti, but she’s more ambivalent as to whether the ocean chose Moana or if it was just a coincidence. She says regardless, and no matter what Moana decides to do, she has full faith in her and supports her, and she is just generally best mom.

Mom jokes that they ought to get back before Dad and Grandma kill each other, a joke that gets much less funny a few seconds later when they hear the conch shell and find out Grandma is actually dying. We’d see her coughing occasionally in earlier scenes and it appears she’s come down with the mysterious illness that is assumed to be caused by the darkness spreading due to Te Fiti missing her heart. When Moana makes it to Grandma’s bedside, she tries to use the heart to heal her, but it doesn’t work that way. Grandma instead chargers her with returning the heart, Moana says she can’t, and Grandma insists she can. She tells Moana she knows she’s hard on her sometimes and pushes her, but only because she knows Moana is braver inside than she knows.

Grandma dies, and Moana declares she will take the heart to Te Fiti. Dad protests at first, but Mom reminds him they agreed to let Moana grow at her own pace, and here she is, telling them she’s ready to grow. He reluctantly concedes and they go to the cave where the large canoes for open-seas voyages are. They aren’t hidden there per se, the interior cove just makes a good place to store them that’s out of the way and out of the weather. They get Moana situated on her boat, then Dad instructs her to wait while he gets one more thing. While he’s gone, Moana confesses to Mom she’s scared and Mom tells her that’s okay; this is a scary thing she’s about to do. The good news is they’ve got something that might help.

Cue Dad coming back with Maui’s fishhook. He explains to Moana that a thousand years ago when their people were looking for somewhere to stay while waiting for it to be safe to voyage again, they found this island with Maui’s hook washed up on the beach, which they took as a sign. Since then it’s been a sacred duty passed down from chief to chief to guard the hook and keep it safe until Maui returned for it. Now he’s passing that duty on to her: she must keep the hook safe and return it to Maui. Then she can ask him for his help in restoring the heart.

Moana is partially excited, because she’s a big fan of Maui. She’s heard all these stories about him and he’s always very daring and brave, which is something she, being meek and often frightened, looks up to him for. On the other hand she’s a bit nervous and overwhelmed at the thought of asking Maui, a demigod for his help. Mom tells her she ought to grab him by the ear and tell him “I am Moana of Motunui. You will board my boat, sail across the ocean, and restore the heart of Te Fiti.” Moana is vaguely horrified, but Mom laughs and says she was just kidding; Maui is the hero of men, if Moana asks for his help, he’s sure to agree.

We get a little of Moana sailing on calm seas, talking herself through what are clearly some rushed instructions on sailing Dad gave her before she set out (or she might be “talking” to Heihei. As he has no real impact on the plot, I won’t be including any mentions of him in this, but if you enjoy his silly chicken antics, please mentally insert him where appropriate). Then a storm rolls in and it becomes very apparent she really has no idea what she’s doing. Her boat capsizes and as a last ditch effort Moana pleads with the ocean to help her. Giant wave, and cut.

We open back up on Moana and her boat washed up on a beach. Moana figures out this is the island where Maui is, has a brief minor panic attack about what she’s going to say to him, suddenly he’s there, and she just blurts out “I am Moana of Motunui,” etc. etc. She is again horrified and quickly and clumsily tries to verbally backpedal until Maui laughs at her good-naturedly and asks if she wants to try that again. She explains, more politely and thoroughly why she’s here and asks for his help. Maui is visibly reluctant, but Moana doesn’t seem to notice. Before he can answer one way or the other, she exclaims she forgot something and scrambles back to her boat to pull Maui’s hook out of the inner compartment. Maui is overjoyed to have his hook back. He gives it a few practice swings then shapeshifts into a few different animals in rapid succession then back to his normal form. He laughs in a way that might seem like just a further expression of joy at the time, but in retrospect is clear awkward “I meant to do that” kind of laughter. He then agrees to join Moana and to help her restore Te Fiti’s heart.

They’re out at sea with Maui now steering the boat – he is the one who knows where they’re going after all – and Moana is fiddling with her necklace. She comes to a decision and opens it up to take out the heart and offer it to Maui, believing it will be safer in his care. Maui freaks out a little, what are you doing, put that thing away, before -= too late. The Kakamora attack.

Maui tells Moana to take over steering the boat and to do what she can to evade and get them away while he holds the Kakamora off. Moana reveals she doesn’t really know how to sail. Maui does some quick thinking, then declares fine, he’ll try to get them away and she should do whatever she can to keep the Kakamora off them. Moana doesn’t do a bad job of it, but unfortunately the Kakamora manage to steal the heart. Moana reports this to Maui and he asks if she thinks she can go over and take it back. At Moana’s flabbergasted response, Maui explains he has an idea to get them away from the Kakamora, but he can’t sail and fight the Kakamora at the same time, so does Moana think she can go steal the heart back? Moana’s answer is a resounding, “No. Yes. Yeas, I can do it.” As Maui notes, this is not an encouraging answer, but he’s going to trust her. Moana is successful in getting the heart back, despite being clearly terrified as she’s doing it, Maui uses a bit of tricky steering to get the Kakamora’s boats to collide into each other, and the two of them escape with the heart.

Moana immediately collapses to the floor of the boat, emotionally overwhelmed by what just happened. Maui pats on the back, a little awkwardly, and tells her she did it, it’s over, everything’s fine now. Once Moana has calmed down he asks her if she really doesn’t know how to sail. Moana says she only has a very basic knowledge that was imparted right before she set out; she never learned before because she’s afraid of the water. Maui looks around as though to confirm, yes, they are indeed surrounded by water. He offers to teach her how to wayfind. Moana is initially reluctant because Maui can do it, so they should be fine, right? Maui points out there may be more situations like what just happened in the future where it’ll be helpful where either of them can take over control of the boat, plus it might help her deal with her fear if she knows what she’s doing. Moana agrees and the scene ends with Maui starting to instruct her on some of the basics.

The next scene fades in with him instructing her on coming in and landing the boat on the beach of a new island. Conversation establishes it’s been a few days, and they’re stopping to top off their supplies. They split up to look for food and fresh water. We’re following Moana who’s found some good fruit that’s just out of reach and she’s so focused on getting it that she doesn’t notice the menacing rustling from behind her. Cut to Maui hearing her scream and running to save her. Cut back to Moana at the end of her scream. She’s been nabbed by Tamatoa. Tamatoa tells her to be quiet, she’s shocked he can talk, and he’s offended she would be shocked. Moana manages to pick up on his sense of self-importance and starts flattering him. It manages to distract him for a while, long enough that by the time he goes to eat her, Maui triumphantly enters the scene. Tamatoa is frightened to see Maui. Maui brandishes his hook with a look of desperate concentration and turns into a little fish. He tries a few more times with no more success. Tamatoa laughs at him and sets Moana down so he can go beat up on Maui as revenge for Maui cutting off his leg. Moana intervenes and manages to trick and incapacitate Tamatoa – Maybe tricking him into falling off a cliff? – and she and Maui run back to the boat.

Once they’re back out at sea Moana asks Maui about the hook not working. He confesses that he hasn’t been able to use it successfully since they got it back. Moana realizes she hasn’t seen him use it at all since he got it back, except the brief bout of rapid-fire changing right when she returned it. Maui confesses that was not what he was trying to do back then, and he’s since been hiding the fact he can’t use the hook from her. But it’s not working anymore, he’s useless. Moana says her family has been holding that hook in sacred trust for him for generations. Maui expression shows he is ready for her to really lay into him. Instead Moana follows her comment with, so of course you’re not going to be able to use it right away. You haven’t been able to practice with it for over a 1000 years. It’s going to take time to relearn how to use it, and Moana offers to help with that. Maui is completely baffled, Moana misunderstands why he is baffled and says that while she doesn’t know how to use a magic fish hook to shapeshift, sometimes it just helps to talk things through with someone, like when she talks through her wayfinding lessons with him, or back on her island she used to talk things through with her mom all the time when she was struggling with it. Maui accepts her help and after a few minutes of talking Moana suggests maybe he’s just overthinking the transformation when he’s supposed to let the magic flow naturally. He tries again with a noticeably calmer expression and manages to transform into a giant eagle for just long enough to briefly celebrate before involuntarily turning back to human. Moana is undeterred, seeing this as a huge success and says as all has he keeps at it and she keeps at her wayfinding they’ll both be pros in no time.

Another time skip and now Maui is telling Moana about some dangerous obstacle up ahead that will require some very skillful sailing and maneuvering of the boat. (I do not know enough about sailing or the geography of Polynesia to know what an appropriate tricky sailing thing could be and as the exact nature of it doesn’t matter, it shall jus be referred to as tricky sailing thing.) After he finishes explaining he tells Moana she’s going to do it as a final test of her new skills. Moana asks if she has to, and Maui says no, not if she doesn’t want to. Relieved at the pressure being off, Moana asks if Maui really thinks she can pull it off. Maui points out that obviously he does or he wouldn’t have suggested it and asks if she thinks she can do it. Moana’s answer is a hesitant but affirmative, “Yes, I can.”

So they begin with the tricky sailing thing, but as soon as they get started, a monster attacks. The exact nature of the monster will ultimately depend on the exact nature of the tricky sailing thing, but for now let’s go with a taniwha. (From Wikipedia: “In Māori mythology, taniwha are beings that live in deep pools in rivers, dark caves, or in the sea, especially in places with dangerous currents or deceptive breakers (giant waves). They may be considered highly respected kaitiaki (protective guardians) of people and places, or in some traditions as dangerous, predatory beings, which for example would kidnap women to have as wives… At sea, a taniwha often appears as a whale or as quite a large shark.”) Maui tells Moana she’s got this, then jumps off the boat and goes to do battle with the taniwha. Moana successfully navigates the tricky sailing thing, made even trickier by the fight going on and Maui successfully uses his shapeshifting abilities to fight off the taniwha. Once they are in the clear they celebrate their success and how awesome each other are.

Next we get an upbeat travel montage with a fun upbeat travel song. There should be scenes of Moana and Maui sailing on open water, stopping off on islands to get more supplies, fighting off more monsters, and maybe weathering a bad storm. Ultimately the montage should showcase that there are a lot of dangers lurking, but also how well Moana and Maui work as a team, and how big and beautiful the area really is.

After the montage we cut to our twilight scene. Moana is steering while Maui lying back, not quite napping. He looks over and notices Moana’s worried expression and asks her what’s wrong. She points out what must be really bad storm clouds blotting out the stars in the direction their heading. Maui looks and tells her those aren’t storm clouds; it’s soot. That’s Te Kā, meaning they should be to Te Fiti by tomorrow.

This unsurprisingly does not alleviate Moana’s worry and Maui tells her it’ll be fine and she’s probably the bravest person he’s ever met. Moana is rather incredulous and points out that she is scared all the time. Maui says not quite as much anymore, but yeah she is, is kind of amazing, but not as amazing as her still being here and having done all the things she has to get here and that’s what makes her so brave, way braver than Maui. Moana takes exception to the implication her childhood hero and new BFF might not be brave and starts pointing out all the brave things he’s done in the past, using his tattoos to illustrate her point. He clearly appreciates the admiration, but points out it was easy for him to act brave in those situations, because he’s _Maui_ , Shapeshifter, Demigod of the Wind and Sea, Hero of Men, he doesn’t have any reason to be scared of monsters. He brandishes his fishhook for emphasis.

Moana hesitates, then touches the tattoo on his back. Maui tenses. She tells him this is the one Maui story she never liked, because it never made sense to her; why would anyone ever want to throw someone as amazing as Maui away. Maui says that was before the gods found him and gave him his fishhook and made him a demigod; his mother didn’t throw Maui away, just him. Moan says just you _is_ Maui. Maui doesn’t believe it, so as proof she points back to all the tattoos of the things he’s done again, things he did all for humanity. Even though his human parent threw him away, he didn’t let that hurt define him; that’s what makes him brave. Very softly he says, “But I did.” Everything he’s done for humanity was with the hope if he could do something amazing enough, if he could just prove he was worthy, then maybe his family would take him back. He gives a self-depreciating chuckle and says he knows they were all mortal and are all long dead now, but in spite of that he keeps hoping…

Moan interrupts to say she will be his family. Her and her mom and dad and her whole island. They’ll all be his family if he wants. He doesn’t have to be alone. Moana is looking up at him all earnest and pure, and Maui laughs again, but happy this time. He tousles her hair and tells her “Alright, alright, you win.” Then he tells he’ll take over with the boat and she should get some sleep because they’ve got a big day tomorrow. She curls up on the boat and Maui looks down at her smiling fondly. The he looks up at the soot cloud and his grip on his hook tightens.

The next day they approach Te Kā and go over their general plan. They’ll split up as they approach Te Fiti, Maui getting in close to Te Kā to harry her while Moana sialing by on the boat hopefully serves as enough of a distraction to give Maui the upper hand. Once she lands on Te Fiti, Moana will hand off the heart to Maui, then hide while Maui uses his shapeshifting to get to the spiral where the heart goes as quickly as possible. They go in and Maui fights Te Kā while Moana searches for a way past the barrier islands. She finally manages to spot the gap, but she hadn’t been paying close enough attention while she was looking and Maui just barely manages to intercept Te Kā’s attack. Moana, Maui and the boat are blasted away by the impact.

Moana returns to consciousness and sees Maui sitting on the edge of the boat. She asks if he’s okay, and he turns, looking completely despondent and holding his cracked and burned hook. She asks if they can fix it, he says no, so she says they’ll be more careful next time. He says there won’t be a next time; Te Kā is too dangerous and if they try again, he’ll break his hook for good. Moana says he doesn’t need it, but Maui says he’s nothing without his hook. Moana says it’ll be okay, what happened was her fault for not paying attention and she won’t let it happen again. She can – Maui snaps, and yells at her no, she can’t.

This breaks Moana. She collapses to the floor, her head bowed and her hand holding her necklace. Maui looks very guilty and hesitantly approaches her. Moana mutters to herself, then repeats it again, louder. “I am Moana of Motunui. You will board my boat, sail sail across the ocean, and restore the heart of Te Fiti.” She has pulled the heart out of her necklace and holds it up to him. Maui is visibly torn and his expression suggests he’s about to change his mind and agree to try again. Right then his hook sparks, he looks at it, and the fear is back. He tells Moana he’s sorry, then transforms and flies away.

Moana scrambles after him, begging him not to leave. As she does, the heart comes out of her hand, bounces off the side of the boat, and sinks down in the ocean. Moana comes to a stop kneeling on the edge of the boat. She looks out over the ocean and asks it to please help her. Nothing appears to happen and she bows her head again in despair.

Then stingray Grandma comes through, and appears as ghost Grandma on her boat. Moan runs to her, and tells her she can’t do it; she’s sorry. Grandma says it’s her fault for asking too much of Moana, for always putting too much on Moana’s shoulders. She tells Moana if she’s ready to go home, then she will be with her.

Moana grabs her oar, but hesitates. Grandma asks why, then we go into the triumphant reprise of Moana’s earlier I Am song. The main theme of the song should be Moana admitting and accepting she’s afraid, but that doesn’t define her. It the experiences she’s had and the lessons she’s learned and the people she loves that makes her who she is. “I am Moana,” and she dives into the ocean to reclaim the heart. She fixes up her boat and sails back to Te Fiti saying, “I am Moana of Motunui. I will board my boat, sail sail across the ocean, and restore the heart of Te Fiti.”

Sher manages to get past Te Kā and through the gap in the barrier islands, showcasing some skill that we have previously seen her use, but once she’s in the inner lagoon, her boat capsizes. Te Kā attacks, but Maui swoops in just in time to save her. Moana is pleased to see him back and he says it was about time he tried being brave. She asks about his hook and he says he doesn’t need it, then winks and adds that Te Kā still has to catch him first. He tells her he’ll hold Te Kā off, so does she think she can go save the world. Moana confidently asserts “Yes, I can.” He flips the boat and fights Te Kā his hook shattering in the process.

Meanwhile Moana makes it to land, climbs the mountain and sees Te Fiti is no longer there. She realizes Te Kā is Te Fiti and holds the heart up to get Te Kā’s attention before heading back down to the water. She holds the heart in front of her and instructs the ocean to let Te Kā come to her. The ocean parts. Moana and Te Kā make their way toward each other. The main emotion on Moana’s face is compassion – she’s finally not scared anymore, but only because she feels so much empathy for the pain Te Kā/Te Fiti has suffered that it overwhelms any feeling of fear.

The heart and Te Fiti are restored. Te Fiti nonverbally thanks Moana. Maui apologizes for what he did and Te Fiti offers him a new hook. He tells her very genuinely he doesn’t need it anymore. Moana agrees he doesn’t need it, but think how many more people he could help with it, plus it would be rude to turn down a gift from a goddess. He tousles her hair and tells her she wins again. He takes the hook and is just as genuinely giddy to have it back. Te Fiti makes Moana a new boat to get home on, and Moana tells Maui he’s welcome to come. He tells her he has a lot of heroing to do, but she’ll see him around. If nothing else he’s got to make it to the next family get-together, right? Moana grins and promises to save him a seat. They hug. Happy ending montage with Moana going back to her island and teaching her people to be voyagers again. The End.


End file.
